


by angel's decree

by ellipsesificate



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, eridan gets the fullest and bestest black quadrant, i mean who the hell doesn't want a black threeway, ish or something i guess to that effect, mentions of blood i guess as well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-12
Updated: 2012-05-12
Packaged: 2017-11-05 05:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/402766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellipsesificate/pseuds/ellipsesificate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tomorrow, the two of you promise him, into his neck and his lips and each other’s lips, you’ll shoot the rest them from the sky.</p>
<p>Until then, he belongs to them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	by angel's decree

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the polypacked challenge. I had an unedited version up there and on my tumblr, which I intended to fully smooth out and elaborate on to make it presentable for this site.
> 
> A couple of months of waffling about and half-assing the whole thing convinced me that it was perfectly fine, I'll get over it. :T

It’s been three weeks since everyone had reawakened on Skaia (New Skaia?  Some demented blend of every place you had to suffer?), and this is the first time that you two have caught him.

The situation is unsettling.  He just lays there, scratches in his neck and violet pooling from three neat stab wounds in his side – they match the tips of the culling fork lying in the sand beside them.  Feferi kneels over him, shrieking _why, why, you should have stayed dead_ , and all you can do is stand there with the chainsaw at the ready, trying to breath in the sea instead of blood.

It takes a minute, but you realize that he’s trying to speak.

“F-Fef…oh god, Fef, please…I’m sorr—”

All at once Feferi stops screaming, and he falls silent as one hand tightens around his throat, the other digging claws into his shoulder.  “You’re what?” she finally spits out, voice hoarse.  She has the same look in her eyes as when you both watched Sollux slam against that wall.  “ _Sorry?_   How can you say that, how can you fucking _say that?_ ”

He doesn’t offer a response, but his limbs all sag and the breath he lets out is so _stupidly tragic_.  You can’t see Feferi’s expression from this angle, but the claws pull back and the princess retreats an inch.  It twinges – the space where your stomach used to be.

There is no time to shout out a warning – the culling fork is in his hands and he whips his arm around, the flat end crashing against Feferi’s head with a metallic _thud_.  She reels backwards, dropping into the sand as he rolls away, on his feet and splashing into the waves.

(dont evver tell fef this but the ocean is really fuckin disgustin nothin but nauseatin little beasts and crud  
i swwear shes the only actual good thin in it)

By all means you should be going after him, before he manages to flounder his way into the deeps and escape.  But the princess is trying to sit up, her tiara dented and there’s a tyrian stain seeping onto it, gathering her hair in clumps.

“That fucker…” she gasps as you kneel in front of her, catching her flailing hands.  Her eyes are glassy and unfocused – unable to settle on your face or the glittering expanse of ocean and its lone patron.  “That glubbing FUCKER, I can’t believe…can’t _bereef_ …that’s _my_ culling fork, he can’t…”

It is only when he is far enough to dive does she rest her head on your shoulder.

**- &.**

Karkat had been trying to explain what you already suspected, ever since you and Feferi returned from that first encounter bloody and shaking.  His reassurances were best briefly summarized as _HE’S A RAGING IDIOT AND AN EMBARRASMENT TO HIS BIOLOGY AT THAT, HE’S PROBABLY A BLOATED CARCASS BY NOW_.

His attempts to placate you have only made things worse – the stitching in your new outfits keeps coming out wrong and Feferi’s puns grow more forced by the night.  Both of you are jittery with agitation at the thought of him dying by anything other than your entwined hands.

When Feferi approaches you in your makeshift hive, guilty and defiant, Ψdon’s Entente in her grip once more, you aren’t sure what to feel.  It shines, scrubbed clean not too long ago, but you can still catch the scent of sea salt and blood.

“ _You_ already got to krill him once, so it’s my turn min-now.”  She’s made it statement, made it sweetly and matter-of-fact, but the wilt of her shoulders speaks volumes otherwise. 

You remain half-turned in your armchair, still threading through the sleeve of one of Nepeta’s old shirts, a ragged thing that you might have finished hours earlier if you hadn’t been forced to wash it at least five times.  “Of course – it would be impolite to for me to intrude upon your opportunity.  But just to satisfy my curiosity, why had he come back?  More importantly—” You almost stab your finger as the needle emerges from the fabric.  “—why didn’t he stay for a chat?  I am certain that Karkat and Sollux would just love to catch up with him.”

To say that you are shocked when Feferi was suddenly right in front of you, Entente angled and eyes stormed over, would be a lie.  “This isn’t _their_ fight!  He’s my fucking responsibility; I’ve let him swim aboat freely for long enough, so I’m going to do what I should have done as his moirail and stop him from hurting anyone _ever again!_ ”

This is not the Feferi that Eridan had pined for; hearts in his eyes and on his sleeves before he ripped them off for a shitty wand.  She shed her responsibilities as Empress long ago when she had cut her moirail loose, but this is the first time since Sollux that she has pursued for _herself_.

You stay quiet, letting her take a few strangled breaths before continuing – you know that same cloying feeling, when your bloodpusher is too heavy and all you want is violet to spray.  “Besides,” she continues after a minute, smiling again, “there’s still Vriska and Gamzee to find – I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if I took care of…him.  It’s just that…”

“This is the part where I rightly assumed that he didn’t resurface just to return your weapon.”

“…he managed to get into the alchemiters.”  Her lips are twisted, trying to swallow down the need to admit that she’s fucked up.  “He has the Crosshairs again.  I cod of gutted him but…I don’t even know what happened but he started babbling, I was just so glubbing mad…”

Your hands have been still for the last minute, you realize as you finally set down the shirt and needle.  Nepeta could wait just a little longer.  “You want to go after him again.”

“Yes!”  You can’t help but admire her grin – serrated, elated, sharp as your own fangs.  “It’s just that he’s properly armed now and I…whale, I might need backup.”

Of course you agree.

**- &.**

Life in this new world is relatively peaceful.  The consorts and carapaces are personable, your fellows can stand the sun, and there are more resources than a handful of youths would ever need.  There are no tyrannical bakers, no need to highlight white text, no omnicidal space dogs emerging from the fabric of the cosmos.

What this world does have are the angels.

Maybe in another time, before the boy with spite in his sneer and destruction in his trigger finger arrived to fuck things over, you wouldn’t have to watch the skies for fear of being snatched up and ripped apart.  Or maybe they were naturally vicious and quick to action as their prince – no one will ever know, because the only person to have an slight idea of what they were like prior to the game was too much of a disillusioned fool to admit to fucking up that particular aspect of his life.

You have watched Eridan aim his rifle from a distance, darting on cliff edges and weaving through forests.  It teeters on the edge of suicidal, the way he clashes with them, and you aren’t particularly invested in the poetry of such a death – someone has to ensure he does not fuck up.  He is the only reason that those blasted demons have not found the camp, is the unspoken fact.  And for now, he’s the only one who can eradicate them.

Regardless, Feferi is glubbing every which way again, and you aren’t nearly as restless as you were during the Veil and the settling down period.  Life is scorching your veins black and staining Feferi’s needle teeth now that you are free to just _chase_ – Karkat has given up on dissuasion, and you don’t know what the other girl had to say to Sollux to stop him from following.  It doesn’t matter because once a week you have your lipstick, she has the culling fork, and you hunt.

Eridan has changed –while he hasn’t rid himself of that hideous scarf, his cape no longer swings around his shoulders.  Instead, you find shreds of it bandaged around his side, his arms and his legs.  Rings still adorn his fingers, but instead of gleaming gold he has them painted jade-tyrian-violet.

He is not as hesitant to fight and hasty to fly anymore.  Ever since the first few encounters, he has stopped going limp and stricken when your hands are scrabbling for his throat, Feferi pulling the scarf tight.  His kicks and his bites and his punches are just as vicious as what you deal right back, the Crosshair’s aim always off just enough for you to not suffer anything more than momentary blindness as he escapes.  It is exhilarating, no longer having to be his friend, his confidante.

For all this newfound, streamlined malice, it becomes harder to remember, in the midst of all this _invigoration_ , that he is a murderer – now he’s just your struggling, bloodied Eridan with his hair disheveled and eyes narrowed (Feferi had taken his glasses and nearly stabbed him in the neck with the broken halves one day, and you were so smitten with the swing of her arm and the way he punched her back in the face), who still cannot decide if he wants to look at you with regret or impertinence, but always manages to works up a besotted jeer.

He continues to kill angels when not griefing with you and the princess, Feferi continues to gnash her teeth at him and you let your chainsaw purr in his face, a reminder for old time’s sake.  You like to think that he takes it to heart.

This new routine had to end eventually, you guess.  It ends with hulking winged fiends over his sprawled form and this isn’t right, the blood spilling out is supposed to be _yours_.  Feferi makes this known when the culling fork is stabbed clean through a wing.

He escapes – pale with that final reminder that he isn’t goddamn invincible – and when you and Feferi return to the others after three days of evading their relentless pursuit, you understand a little better why he hated them so much.

They will ruin him again and you will not allow that.

**- &.**

Eridan will not humour the chase anymore – when Feferi’s claws sink into his wrists and you lightly scrape your teeth across his neck he tries to lurch _away_.  He’s gaunt and shaky again and it makes you so fucking furious, you want rip out his throat and slice through the scar circling his waist if it will get him to fight back.

Going to that extent would defeat your purpose, so the closest you get is finally (FINALLY) biting into the base of his neck when he stumbles backwards into your arms.  Feferi descends seconds later, snapping at his lips.

He jolts, thrashes, snarls past the drip of blood, “You decide to stop dancin’ around this right _noww_ , seriously?  They’re gonna get us, wwe’ll all be killed because you twwo couldn’t—”

You hold his hips still as Feferi clasps his upper arms, hissing.  “And that’ll be glubbing _fin_.  It’s not like you can run foreeeeever!”

“I can goddamn wwell try and you really are forgettin’ wwhat’s important here.  Namely you giwin’ back the Crosshairs so that I can fuckin’ defend myself, can’t wwe get back to this lat—”

It tastes sour and dark and perfect.   “We were hoping that you might have _learned_ from the last time you engaged in what likened to warfare with those beasts.”

With a pained glance at the rifle lying a few feet away, he curses.  Feferi has no patience for that and nips at his fins.  “Eeeee-ri-dan,” she croons, eyes narrowing, “ _Theeeeeey_ aren’t the focus right now.  Right now you have to shoal us how sorry you are that you krilled us!”

The underlying accusation does not loosen his shoulders.  He also does not wince.  “Shore thing, fincess—”  He hasn’t used puns since the Veil and it pushes the right buttons.  Horrorterror slips from her tongue and it tears your eardrums until Eridan leans forward and smashes his mouth onto hers, sagging against you just enough to permit your fangs in his shoulder.

_Tomorrow_ , the two of you promise him, into his neck and his lips and each other’s lips, _you’ll shoot the rest them from the sky_.

Until then, he belongs to them. 


End file.
